RE: Psi: How Open Minded are You Really?
March 23, 2015 at 2:33 pm
(This post was last modified: March 23, 2015 at 2:36 pm by Homeless Nutter.)
Considering that actual superstition has been observed in species of animals - like Skinner's pigeons, that performed random actions they associated with randomly applied stimuli - it's not unreasonable to assume there might be some sort of evolutionary benefit to it.
This is a total speculation on my part, but perhaps it's something that saves "brain power"(?). If you accept unproven and - in fact - ineffective, but emotionally pleasing solution to a problem that you're otherwise unable to solve, because of inadequate brain capabilities - you may stop "worrying" about it and can try and get on with other tasks. Maybe you'll get killed, but if you somehow survive - you'll have spent less energy, than someone who kept trying to solve the problem - unsuccessfully.
Of course - with rising intelligence, resulting in relatively smaller environmental pressure - it makes less and less sense - in terms of evolutionary advantage, to rely on superstition to "deal" with our problems, since many of those may be solved rationally - with far greater benefits.
This is a total speculation on my part, but perhaps it's something that saves "brain power"(?). If you accept unproven and - in fact - ineffective, but emotionally pleasing solution to a problem that you're otherwise unable to solve, because of inadequate brain capabilities - you may stop "worrying" about it and can try and get on with other tasks. Maybe you'll get killed, but if you somehow survive - you'll have spent less energy, than someone who kept trying to solve the problem - unsuccessfully.
Of course - with rising intelligence, resulting in relatively smaller environmental pressure - it makes less and less sense - in terms of evolutionary advantage, to rely on superstition to "deal" with our problems, since many of those may be solved rationally - with far greater benefits.
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." - George Bernard Shaw
